I know this is a joke but for anyone reading: Linux has many advantages and is great but is NOT immune to viruses or exploits.
Though there are very few of them… at least regarding virurses.
That isn’t true at all.
Source: My job is hardening Linux servers against cyber security threats.
Hardening a server is not the same thing as running vulnerable operating systems.
According to NIST it is:
You have to harden servers because they’re vulnerable.
That’s because of the function of a server running those services. A desktop isn’t running services.
did…did you really started using linux because of porn?
That’s… quite the dedication. I personally just never downloaded things or ran random executables from porn sites, but hey… who am I to judge, I guess
There’s always a risk of JavaScript breaking out of the sandbox and crap like that. Browser vendors do their best to protect against things like that but security is often a trade-off for speed and people like fast software, not to mention browsers are huge and complex and they’re going to have vulnerabilities. A browser’s whole job is to execute remote untrusted code, do you trust it that much to be flawless?
… I mean, I don’t but I use it anyway so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Linux security noob here but can’t you just run the browser in a chroot with everything isolated?
Yeah, that should work too… but you don’t get to see any of your local files…
Made a Nix library for this. For a simple setup you can just build this (untested) and run the result:
import ./encase.nix { name = "firefox"; rw.home.nathan = /home/nathan/home-for/firefox; # other dependencies it might need... tmp = /tmp; # fresh tmpfs for this sandbox network = true; command = pkgs.firefox; }
It doesn’t have user isolation yet, so if it escapes the browser and the chroot (which doesn’t have a
/proc
unless you setproc = /proc;
, and runs in a PID namespace either way) your files are still at risk. However, this is still pretty secure, and you can run the script itself as a different user (it creates a new UID namespace so chrooting can be done without root).